- Bees under lots of “sub-lethal stresses.” I know how they feel.
- Hadzabe, who have been doing it for thousands of years, to be trained in honey production.
- Chinese farmers to be taught law of diminishing returns.
- “Workers at the Egyptian Desert Gene Bank in Cairo harvest and grow threatened desert species in its laboratory before replanting them to their native soils, hoping to revitalize threatened desert species.”
- Lao National Nutrition Policy puts nutrition at the centre of development.
- Economic botany and architectural fripperies.
- Got milk?
Socializing with plants at Kew
Kew is hosting a festival of ethnobotany, highlighting research into plant-people relationships. Featured topics will likely include medicinal plants in Britain, Spain, China and southern Africa; wild foods in Britain and Africa; natural fibres and basketmaking, home gardens in Britain, spice plants in India, and many more. The emphasis is on hands-on, table-top displays with plenty of opportunity to talk to the exhibitors.
It’s on 7 March, and it sounds like fun. If you go, let us know about it. And send us photos.
The future of genebanks?
Well, maybe. But we’d have to find a way out of database hell first.
Natural contaminants
Further proof that you can have too much of a good thing, even agrobiodiversity.
LATER: And John Schwenkler’s reaction to the NY Times’ outrage.
Mapping the environment
A UNEP press release about the launch of the “Kenya: Atlas of Our Changing Environment” led me to the website of the global project to which the Kenya publication contributes. It does include agriculture and aquaculture: check out the drop-down menu in the top right-hand corner. You click on the icon on the map and get more information on specific sites, such as Balanta rice farming in Guinea-Bissau, for example. You can download imagery and leave comments about each site.